The unavoidable reality for Malcolm Turnbull is that no matter how far ahead of Bill Shorten’s better PM rating he moves, the Coalition government continues to trail Labor on the two party vote.
The Coalition has now trailed Labor for 19 consecutive Newspolls, leaving only 11 to go before Turnbull emulates the feats of Tony Abbott that he used to challenge him for the prime ministership.
Tick-tock.
The simple fact is that if Turnbull hits the magic 30 number, he won’t be able to brush off question as to why he shouldn’t consider his position. And if he thinks Abbott and his fan club are painful now, just imagine what they will be like in 11 Newspoll’s time.
Understandably so political realists would say: live by the sword, die by the sword. All it would take for the countdown (and the distraction) to end is for the Coalition to draw level in one poll. They wouldn’t even need to move in front. But the two party vote seems entrenched in Labor’s favour, notwithstanding poor personal numbers for Shorten.
While both Shorten and Turnbull haven’t inspired voters — they each have net satisfaction ratings of minus 20 — when the assessment of the pairs leadership becomes comparative, Turnbull dominates every time.
Today’s Newspoll saw Turnbull’s better PM rating widen to the largest margin since the election. He leads Shorten 46 per cent to just 29 per cent. Why doesn’t such dominance impact on the two party vote? There are two reasons.
Firstly, successful opposition leaders often trail incumbents on the better PM rating. The negative job of tearing down a PM can be unedifying. It helps the Opposition’s party vote, but can hurt the leader personally. Abbott suffered from the same phenomenon but it didn’t stop him securing a sizeable victory in 2013.
Shorten is copying the Abbott playbook.
Second, swinging voters want to like Turnbull, but they see no evidence of him standing up to the reactionaries in his own ranks. The spectre of disunity suppresses the party vote for the Coalition, as well as satisfaction levels with Turnbull.
It’s hard to know what might spark a recovery in the Coalition’s party vote. The only certainty is that a coup against Turnbull would make matters worse.
Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics at the University of Western Australia and a presenter on Sky News.
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